whats the difference between a consumer video camera and a professional video camera?

Question

Whats the difference between a consumer video camera like the sony trv models and the professional sony cameras?

Answer 1

One is made by the home electronics division in China, designed by the Home Electronics division in Japan.

The professional camera is designed and made IN JAPAN by the Professional Electronics division.

The chips are bigger. The body is made of cast aluminum not plastic, the lenses are interchangable, there is generally no viewfinder or LCD screen (it is expected you will run a Textronic or Trinitron monitor) but there is an optical through the lense viewer. There are 3 chips not just one and they are generally 1/3 of an inch in size not 1/4 or 1/6th as in consumer cameras. It includes color dot and bar generators. It will connect to genlock and time code equipment. It uses less video compression and runs either DV-CAM tape at twice the speed of home camcorders or Betamax (Betacam SP) tape. It delivers 600 - 800 lines of horizontal resolution. You can align or adjust the intensity for RGB. It has different output and input connectors not found on home units. I has a 1 year warranty. It is highly repairable. It generally does NOT come with a microphone but includes an XLR input and output for audio connection from either Low Z (150 ohm) mic or possibly professional line level audio (+3 DBV) for wireless mics. SOME DV-CAM models can also play home Mini DV-C tapes with an adapter, provided it offers slow and fast speeds. It costs from $7,500 and up.

In prices over $12,000 you can generally find cameras using the 4-2-2 sampling mode (EFP) instead of the 4-1-1 mode of home and news (ENG) cameras.

In prices over $25,000 you can find those that use both 4-4-4 and 4-2-2 sampling and don't do any compression to the video (DV CAM 100).

Sampling deals with color to brightness. Home and ENG (low priced professional) cameras sample color for one out of four pixels (4-1-1), while broadcast studio and EFP (electronic field production) cameras sample 2 pixels (4-2-2) or the overkill color of each pixel (4-4-4).

Home cameras generally compress 7:1 or greater. ENG compresses 5:1 or greater. EFP compresses in the 3:1 or 1:1 range (no compression, full 4-4-4 data from each pixel).

Basially think of RAW (TIFF or Bit Map) storage vs JPEG/MPEG compressed files.

Finally, most cameras priced over $9,000 offer a variety of speed settings, including 24/25 FPS, 29.95, i and p (interlaced and progressive) and can even offer variable speeds from 8 FPS to 100 FPS.

Answer 2

Earl D said a lot of stuff, and some of it was right, but let me add to his response.

1/3 inch chips are considered pro, but they're certainly not the biggest size you can get. 1/2 inch chips, 2/3 inch chips and even 35mm sized chips are all available, although they probably wouldnt be in what we think of as a digital video camera, but instead in studio cameras, or digital cinema cameras. Also, newer consumer HD cams have 1/3 inch chips as well. Also, earl D mentioned 3 chip cameras. Yes that does separate the pros from the wannabes (to some extent), but some newer cameras are starting to get away from the 3 chip scheme and just stick with 1 chip. And again, some consumer cameras have 3 chips as well. So in the old days, 3 is better than 1. Now, that still applies, but maybe not all the time. And yes, pro's have interchangeable lenses, but not necessarily all pro cams. So I think the real differences between consumer and pro cams is that pros offer better quality. Seems obvious doesnt it? But how? Pros offer better quality with less compression, better lenses, better chips, and better control. So not necessarily more, but better. For example, a pro camera like the HVX200 uses less compression (DVCPRO HD) than consumer cams (HDV), uses a shorter 10x lens but with better quality Leica optics, it still uses 1/3 inch chips, but with less pixels packed onto each of its 3 chips to still create full HD quality with less than .5 MP on each of its sensors, and allows better control by the option of variable frame rates, manual features, picture adjustments, etc. Hope this helps!

Answer 3

Pro cameras have better lenses, microphones and chips, more specific controls and readouts, and connections for other pro equipment. They are also bigger, which gives a more professional look, and helps with stabilization.

Answer 4

VIDEO QUALITY is the two words for all the difference it has, and having the best quality also means shelling out more dough that's why those pro cams are very expensive!

Earl D (& evilgenius too) do have all the details..... and after all the things that have been said, it boils down to one,
and that's QUALITY.

Answer 5

Typically quality. Also they may add features that are only really important to 'professionals'.
The market is getting wierd tho with everyone wanting top-quality stuff - everyone is a 'professional' now-a-days.

Answer 6

the amount of CCD chips, craftsmanship